Tag: positivity

This post is all about “should statements.” I was trying to think logically about how I messed up at work yesterday and at first I did well. Then the day went on and I started to believe another thought, “You should have done better.” Then I channeled everything that happened that day. “No, actually I should NOT have done better. I now have this memory, this BIG memory because of what happened from my mess up, and I will most likely never make the mistake again.” I mean, I might make the same mistake again but since the memory of my mess up is so big in my mind, the probability of doing it again goes drastically down. So maybe I “should” have done differently, but I really should not have done differently if you see what I mean. Anything that could have a “should statement” in front of it, is just a barrier to learning something that will help you so much in the long run. This memory of this mess up is now in my mind. So if anyone tells me I should or should not do something, I will just say (or think to myself), “The word should is the barrier to best lesson I could learn.” The best lesson because mistakes are harder to forget. So much different than looking at a lesson on a chalkboard. So don’t just push should statements out of your mind, channel them the opposite direction. You “shouldn’t” have made that mistake at work? Well you learned something out of it so maybe you should have.

PS: The way I came up with this post is because I wanted to write something. I thought really hard about my dilemma. Harder than I would if I just wanted to be happy. I didn’t want to turn my emotions into art and be creative because being creative to me can sometimes makes things worse if I am in a bad state. So I decided to think of something to blog about and I came up with this gem of a coping skill. (Well really an extra little twist to this already known coping skill). Basically I knew I wanted to write something in my time of insecurity because feeling creative or feeling smart could help me with my problems and I wanted to showcase the things I know. So I wrote about it and came up with something else. If you have no other motivation for using coping skills, try to remember how good it feels to blog about your intelligence and what you came up with on your own. That could be motivation in itself to think positively like it motivated me to change my “should statements.”

This is a large part of the story to being able to find the blueprints to your worthiness. Basically for years I was trapped in the ideal that girls should be weak and dainty. I never wanted to be anything else because no one told me the other way around was worthy too. First of all, “strong is beautiful” is something that is being said to women now and I’m grateful, but it wasn’t said to me when I was younger. Anyway, I started working at a bakery on a side where being strong didn’t really matter. The other side however, the side I never worked, was where the strength was required. Since I was a child, whenever I would lift something I would feel bad about myself afterwards, but it’s human nature to be able to lift. If we were cavemen how would we survive without a little strength? But you don’t just have to look at it like that. What I did was I watched my co-worker lift these things. The way I lifted them the rare times I had to was strained and struggling…the way I thought it should be. Then I saw my co-worker lift these things like it was no big deal whatsoever. Her eyes were unaffected. She’s just lifting and carrying this giant bag to wherever it needs to go. Then I began to get stronger myself and eventually had to work the side where strength was required. I ended up being able to carry large things in one arm. Since I was young I cringed at myself anytime I noticed my physical strength. Now I put a large portion of my consciousness to the muscles in my arms as I carry these things. I let them protrude into my consciousness until I feel their worth. The reason I love being strong now is because of the gracefulness of your muscles tight against whatever you are carrying. The gracefulness of just carrying it without a fuss. The thought of how intense you look with those two things combined. I must also mention that now I believe strong to be worthy, that doesn’t mean the worthiness of being weaker has evaporated from my mind. That ideal was ingrained into my head for probably most of my life. That ideal will not leave my mind nor should it. Someday I’ll get older and I’ll get weaker. I won’t have a choice but to lose my muscle and by the time that day comes I’ll need a strong mind and a strong mind comes from loving yourself no matter what. I know how it feels to be okay with being less than strong, so I will make sure I keep that in my mind as to not judge others who are not the strongest and I ask that everyone else does the same in any other aspect of their self love. Find your worth in whatever it is that you are and keep the worth you always saw in whatever you used to desire. Or if you were born loving a certain aspect of yourself, work on trying to love the opposite even if you don’t desire it as to be sure you don’t judge others. You won’t judge others because you see their worth already and you hold self love for yourself. This gets rid of self loathing that leads to judgements and seeing someone different from yourself that leads to judgements. I believe this to be one of the keys in eradicating judgements. If we all see the worthiness in ourselves and notice that people who hold the opposite aspect are worthy too.

This is obviously very off topic and new for me considering I am not a mother, but I wanted to talk about this. The only time I have actually witnessed mom shaming has been on the internet. I have never seen or heard anyone shaming a mother in public. I know this probably happens, and I know it makes me lucky that I have never had to witness such things. The only mom shaming I have actually witnessed with my own eyes is the occasional doubt of my own mother’s mothering skills. What I mean by this is that in my life, I have heard my mom upset at her parenting skills. Not very often, maybe three times in my whole life, but it’s upsetting. It’s upsetting to see your parents upset for one, but it’s also upsetting to see them upset at their parenting skills. I mean, we are the children and we love our parents. We don’t want them upset. So I see mom shaming on the internet. Specially I have seen Pink being mom shamed on Instagram recently. I am not a mother and I don’t know what really is dangerous for a child. What I do know is that I am the child and I am upset when my mother mom shames herself. How would I feel if I actually heard someone insult her mothering? I would probably be heart broken. Mom shaming is something moms do to other moms when they don’t believe their parents skills are up to par. What is the point of this? I always thought it was because they were worried for the child or cared for this other child. That may be exactly what it is. However, I believe mom shaming to be counter productive and does the exact opposite. If someone were to insult my mothers parenting skills when I was a child, those words would not help me…they would hurt me because they would hurt my mom. Mom shaming is there to try and guilt a mother into changing her ways for the better of the child. It does the opposite. It makes the child sad for the adult that loves and cares for them. So lets stop this mother shaming.

I must say first that this method might not be for everyone. Eating disorders thrive on secrecy and if you are one of those people who feels that they need to hide their behaviors in order to continue doing them, then this isn’t the post for you. When I have been in treatment, you have to talk about your behaviors every morning. When I was in PHP last year we spent eleven hours in a program, seven days a week and went home to sleep. I was ready to recover so much. However, I get extremely triggered by talking about behaviors. If I didn’t do any behaviors that night and someone else did, I felt out of control and guilty. Then I immediately regretted it and wanted to do behaviors the next night. Sometimes the only thing that got me through that morning was the fact that no one else did any behaviors. I still do understand the secrecy though. If I had done behaviors, I might have kept them to myself, but I would have felt like I was in more control. So last year, I did something different. All of us had sheets we filled out that had charts to check off each morning. They would ask for behaviors and urges. After we read this aloud, they would always go to our therapists’ mail box for them to read. I would write down my answers honestly, to take away that secrecy, and then I would read them off as if I were cured. People would be talking about their behaviors and I would say I didn’t even have an urge. (I must also point out that I’m not trying to say people are weak for talking about behaviors. This is just me. If I go against a crowd doing these things, then I feel strong, but that doesn’t mean this kind of strength is strength for everyone. If secrecy is what your disorder thrives on, then you are strong for speaking of your behaviors) I would write down any urges and behaviors but make sure I didn’t say them aloud. This wasn’t me trying to be sneaky as it might sound, I was trying to be strong and defy the eating disorder. I felt like that picture I have that makes me love confidence. That girl getting her hair cut. My brain is telling me to be like everyone else. Do what everyone else did last night. Make sure they all know you are not weak. Make sure everyone knows you are in control. Or don’t tell them anything…but be in control. Well, letting everyone know I had no urges, I was looking up into the air with my eyes closed. Birds were fluttering around me writing yes into the sky. And as soon as the words escaped me, words that basically say, “I am cured,” I open my eyes and feel liberated. Image: Pinterest

I have been feeling insecure lately about something many people have said about me. “You smile a lot.” It might sound strange as to how this can make someone feel insecure, but I heard a song recently that made me question this as a compliment. The song says, “Boys seem to like the girls who laugh at anything.” This was said in a judgmental manner to girls who laugh a lot. It made me believe that laughing a lot only means that I am trying to get boys to like me even though I laugh a lot with everyone. Listening to this I immediately thought this person was implying that these type of girls are those who are completely unintelligent. Ever since I heard this song, I have been getting insecure when I laugh, as odd as that may sound. Lets check the facts shall we? No one goes their whole life without smiling or laughing. Some people are considered intelligent, and they are people, so they have never gone their lives without laughing. Now, lets change our perspective from smiling being unintelligent (thanks brain) to being anything you desire it to be. When you smile you can look classy, like this- When you smile you can look sweet, like this- Beauty is the eye of the beholder. And these gifs make me see the beauty in myself when I laugh and smile. Also, something very important to me, when you smile, you can have a twinkle in your eye, like this-

I was a different person a year ago. I was weak and I was broken. People would hurt me and I would say nothing. I would smile through it and I was so numb that I could barely cry. When I am in a conflict with someone, it is so, so easy for me to take the high road. It is easy for me to apologize and say it’s all my fault even if I don’t believe it. I haven’t gotten into a conflict from age 13 to 22. When someone hurts me, I smile, or I say that I know what they are saying is true. If they talk to me like nothing happened, I talk to them like nothing happened, even if I’m very upset about it. Taking the high road is easy for me. If you see me smiling when someone says something rude to me, I am not being strong. I am being weak. However, I understand completely that some people need to fight to not yell, to not make an annoyed face or laugh at the person making an argument against them. To some people, taking the high road is so important to their personal growth. For me, ignoring people, looking at them in a way that shows them I am hurt or angry, is incredibly hard for me. I’ve been having problems lately with trying to be strong and people thinking that the image of strength is one thing. You need to take the high road or you are a pathetic weakling, or you need to fight or you are a pathetic weakling. But it’s not true. It is so easy for some of us to laugh off our pain, and harder for us to show our feelings. For some people, it is easy to show our pain, and harder to take the high road. This goes for so many things. We are all different, and we all have different fears. So showing our strength is as different for everyone as our personalities differ as well. Another example could be a person wanting to feel alive with doing anything that can be considered an adrenaline rush, and then looking at their family and being afraid to lose them if something happens. This strength can be seem as someone who is really afraid of not having this adrenaline rush, so he/she is going to give all of these risks up in order to take away their families anxiety. Then there is the other person who is afraid of taking risks and must take risks to face their fears. Both scenarios are people facing their fears. And both people are strong.

My dreams have saved me. Last year my therapist said I’m young and can do anything. I didn’t want to do anything. I wanted to be with my dog and be with my eating disorder. Then I got a change of heart, and now I want everything. Mainly I want to make a different in animals lives. With my eating disorder I cannot do that. How can I without energy? So I made another blog. I will still be writing on this one, but I also have another one now called lovinganimalrights.wordpress.com and this is without talk of my eating disorder. My animal blog is strictly my recovery. And since this is strictly my recovery, I will only write in it when I am in recovery. I’m making a promise to myself that if I ever relapse, I will stop writing in that blog. If I ever relapse, I will feel the depth of what it feels like to lose everything due to the eating disorder. I’m done Ed. I’m ready to help save animals. Like I said in my depression post, this is what I’ve wanted since I was a child. Going back to my healthy dreams of my childhood is what cured my depression. Here comes an even happier life!